Echo the Silence
by Shadows of a Dream
Summary: Summary: "I guess even the smart kids have to bleed eventually. That's what the Games are for, right? Death. Not intelligence. The Capitol wants to watch my pain." Foxface's thoughts as she lies dying. Canon. R&R!


**A/N: **This is the beginning of a Foxface death fanfic. I'm writing on request for someone who runs a Foxface (District 5) page on Facebook. I'm hoping to continue this in the future! Please review. Reviews are the most motivating thing _ever_. They're the main reason that I've been keeping up with my other THG fic, "Pieces" – a story about Katniss' daughter, post-Mockingjay, as she learns about the horrors of the past Hunger Games. If you're ever bored, maybe check that out?

Anyway...

I hope you like this story. It's mostly emotional introspection, as I'm curious to explore the personality, past, and internal thoughts of the mostly silent Foxface. I've also decided to name her. The name just came to my mind, and I knew I had to use it. That info is below.

_**Foxface - Samara Rhaine**_

**Summary: "I guess even the smart kids have to bleed eventually. That's what the Games are for, right? Death. Not intelligence. The Capitol wants to watch my pain." Foxface's thoughts as she lies dying. Canon. R&R!**

May the odds be _ever _in your favor!

**...**

**Echo the Silence**

_** Chapter 1**_

Splitting up? A bad strategy. Then again, with Mellark half-dead and Everdeen an able hunter, I suppose it makes logical sense. _Not half-bad for District 12, _I think. I hadn't expected this much from that coal-mining hole.

Then again, Katniss is already headed out into the trees with her bow drawn, failing to notice me. I smile surreptitiously, trying to keep my breathing quiet and even. I crouch lower in the foliage and will myself to become invisible. I am a lone huntress, an untamable predator – unknown, unseen, unnamed.

But unloved.

Secrecy is my power. Silence is my blade. Darkness is my ally. I move in the shadows, a fiery ghost of the night, silver blade drawn without a sound and plunged with a hot, wet spray of scarlet into the back of the unsuspecting.

I'm... _different_, I guess you could say. Not a cold-blooded killer like the District 1 tributes. Not a gentle light like Rue. Not a sensitive, powerful warrior like Katniss. There was a time when I knew friendship, trust, and maybe even love. Not anymore.

I'm smart.

It's not easy. I've never taken the easy way. I'm stronger than that.

I'm _smarter _than that.

Concealed by the rampant foliage of the Arena, I'm close enough to Peeta Mellark right now that I could probably kill him, but something in the back of my head won't let me draw my knife. I wonder why. Kill him, and there's one less tribute to worry about. I'd be one step closer to surviving, plain and simple, and hasn't that been my goal all along – survival?

But I can't do it. That's one of the things I never let on while training for the Games. I wasn't bred to kill. I never wanted to.

I'm smart, but I haven't turned my heart to stone or ice just yet. I still feel things intensely; I'm just skilled at shutting them out. At least, sometimes. There are days when I'm scared that if I avoid emotion for too long, I'll forget how it feels. I'll turn into Cato – callous, murderous, and brutal. I don't want that for myself.

Besides, even if I _was_ going to stab Peeta in the back, District 12 would be on my tail in no time. I've seen what she can do. Although Cato clearly saw it fit to finish off their District 4 boy in his rage, it's Katniss' fault that the Careers' food supplies went up in flames. A well-aimed shot from her bow and a conveniently placed net of apples did the trick.

Not to mention, District 12 survived the Feast – no child's play. That might be due, in part, to Thresh, but she's alive, all the same. A lesser fighter would have met a slow and bloody death at the hands of Clove. I hate to admit it, but that District 1 girl is the only tribute that I haven't felt the slightest pang of sympathy for. I couldn't afford it.

Sometimes, being smart has a cost.

I watch District 12 saunter off to hunt, and I think about throwing my knife at her throat. Yet, somehow, I don't want to. Why, I'm not sure. Maybe it's that I respect her at some level for surviving the Games this long. Maybe it's that I envy her – she has love, the love of a boy who would give the world for her.

_Love. _I try out the word in my mind.

The tricky thing is how I'm not really sure what that is.

I learned the truth earlier than most. Love isn't smart. It never is. I have something better: intelligence. Enough brains to know that falling in love – or even falling into mutual respect and alliance with one of the tributes – means waiting for a knife in the back, or being forced to deliver the fatal blow myself.

And I'm smarter than that. I think ahead. I strategize.


End file.
